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David Sirota: Why Democrats Keep Ignoring What Their Voters Want · The Real News Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, my name is Tia Graham, and welcome to the
0:07
Speaker 1: Inequality Watch Report, a show that examines government policy and
0:10
Speaker 1: action through the lens of extreme economic inequality, the existential
0:14
Speaker 1: issue of our time. Today, we're going to discuss a
0:16
Speaker 1: topic that defines who holds power in America and how
0:19
Speaker 1: they keep it despite growing voter dissatisfaction amid a historic
0:23
Speaker 1: wealth imbalance. It's a story of money, access, and self-enrichment
0:27
Speaker 1: that is at the root of the bad policies and
0:29
Speaker 1: broken institutions we all struggle with daily. And it's an
0:32
Speaker 1: issue that transcends the nominal state of play in this
0:34
Speaker 1: country to ensure entrenched power never loses its grip on
0:39
Speaker 1: our wavering democracy. I am talking about, of course, the
0:42
Speaker 1: hordes of cash that have turned our political system into
0:45
Speaker 1: a pay-for-play utopia. Since the infamous Citizens United decision in 2010,
0:50
Speaker 1: when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations could make unlimited
0:53
Speaker 1: independent expenditures to influence elections, super PACs and other vehicles
0:57
Speaker 1: have transformed our elections into a veritable auction to the
1:00
Speaker 1: highest bidder. But there's a lot more going on behind
1:03
Speaker 1: the scenes, where all this money is going, how it's
1:05
Speaker 1: warping our electoral system, and ultimately, who is cashing the checks.
1:09
Speaker 1: To help us uncover the dark details of how the
1:12
Speaker 1: system constrains us, we will be speaking with journalist and
1:15
Speaker 1: filmmaker David Sirota. But first, I want to check in
1:18
Speaker 1: with my reporting partner and co-host, Stephen Janis, to set
1:21
Speaker 1: the stage for our conversation. Stephen, how are you?
1:23
Speaker 2: Very beleaguered.
1:24
Speaker 3: Very beleaguered by the cash system you were just talking about,
1:27
Speaker 3: the ATM and politics.
1:28
Speaker 1: Have I already depressed you?
1:29
Speaker 2: Yes, quite a bit.
1:31
Speaker 1: You know, Stephen, there was a question I had for you.
1:33
Speaker 1: There was a weird mystery in Democratic circles that was
1:36
Speaker 1: sort of a one day story, but it speaks to
1:38
Speaker 1: a less talked about aspect of today's topic. It's a
1:41
Speaker 1: missing chapter from the so-called Democratic autopsy of the 2024 election.
1:47
Speaker 1: What was it about and why do you think it's
1:49
Speaker 1: important to our discussion today?
1:50
Speaker 3: Well, the basic story was that the Democratic Party didn't
1:53
Speaker 3: want to release an autopsy in their 2024 loss to Trump.
1:56
Speaker 3: So there was a lot of controversy about that. Eventually
1:58
Speaker 3: they released it. But then the New York Times broke
2:00
Speaker 3: a story about a missing chapter from that report. And
2:03
Speaker 3: the missing chapter was really interesting. The fact that they
2:06
Speaker 3: left this out was talked about the consultant class that
2:10
Speaker 3: works elections that literally had somehow through this entire process
2:15
Speaker 3: of running elections to obtain generational wealth. Generational wealth. That's
2:21
Speaker 3: a direct quote from the New York Times story. And
2:23
Speaker 3: so that just like really got my attention. I know
2:25
Speaker 3: money and politics is ridiculous at this point in our
2:29
Speaker 3: historic run towards authoritarianism. But I had no idea that
2:33
Speaker 3: you could get generational wealth. And I do recall a
2:36
Speaker 3: tweet from our guest, David Sirota, talking about people after 2024,
2:40
Speaker 3: all these consultants going to beaches and like sort of living.
2:43
Speaker 3: the luxurious life, thanks to their consultant fees for these elections.
2:48
Speaker 3: So that really, I think, was something that just stunned
2:50
Speaker 3: me that you could become that wealthy losing.
2:54
Speaker 1: I think I chose the wrong line of work, apparently.
2:56
Speaker 1: Generational wealth.
2:57
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
2:58
Speaker 1: You know, I think this explains why working people's issues
3:00
Speaker 1: are always on the back burner. I mean, we both
3:02
Speaker 1: cover Capitol Hill. And despite a recent poll showing that
3:06
Speaker 1: 91 million Americans say they could not afford quality health
3:10
Speaker 1: care if they needed it, we can go months without
3:12
Speaker 1: hearing even a peep about it. It's just silence. But
3:15
Speaker 1: I'm sure our guest will have plenty to say about it.
3:17
Speaker 1: David Sirota is the founder of the investigative news organization
3:21
Speaker 1: The Lever. He is a former speechwriter for Senator and
3:23
Speaker 1: presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and was nominated for an Oscar
3:27
Speaker 1: for his work creating the story for the Netflix film
3:30
Speaker 1: Don't Look Up. He is also the producer of the
3:32
Speaker 1: podcast series The Master Plan. I could go on, but
3:35
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have time for the interview. So, David, let
3:38
Speaker 1: me just say thank you so much for joining us.
3:40
Speaker 4: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
3:42
Speaker 1: So first question, just to get a sense of this
3:44
Speaker 1: consultant class and how their role in politics and how
3:47
Speaker 1: much money they're pocketing, and the report actually cited generational
3:51
Speaker 1: wealth for these people. How on earth are political consultants
3:54
Speaker 1: soaking up this much money just working for a campaign?
3:58
Speaker 5: Well, it has to do with, in many cases, how
4:00
Speaker 5: their fee structure works. A lot of the way the
4:03
Speaker 5: consultant fee structure works is related to how many television
4:09
Speaker 5: ads are purchased. So they get in a lot of
4:14
Speaker 5: these deals, a cut of the buy. So the more,
4:18
Speaker 5: the larger a TV ad buy is, the more the
4:21
Speaker 5: consultant stands to make. Now, obviously that creates, there's sort
4:27
Speaker 5: of a conflict of interest problem there, which is if
4:29
Speaker 5: your main campaign strategist stands to benefit from a certain
4:36
Speaker 5: form of spending and will not benefit from other forms
4:39
Speaker 5: of spending, then the consultant is more likely and is
4:43
Speaker 5: really financially incentivized to suggest that the campaign spend in
4:48
Speaker 5: the way that it benefits the consultant rather than spending
4:51
Speaker 5: in different ways. So in practice, it's not that TV
4:54
Speaker 5: ads aren't important in elections, they certainly are, but a
4:58
Speaker 5: disproportionate amount of campaign budgets go into TV on campaigns
5:05
Speaker 5: where the consultant is paid as a percentage of the
5:08
Speaker 5: cut of the buy And in many cases, less money
5:11
Speaker 5: goes into mail, goes into organizing, goes into a field
5:17
Speaker 5: and ground game, right? It's like there's like a baked
5:20
Speaker 5: in financial incentive. And we're talking about, you know, in
5:23
Speaker 5: these major races, we're talking about millions and millions of
5:26
Speaker 5: dollars that are at stake here, right? If you're a
5:28
Speaker 5: consultant who's getting a cut of a hundred million dollar
5:31
Speaker 5: ad buy, I mean, you are making a ton of money.
5:34
Speaker 3: And David, what do you say to the idea that
5:37
Speaker 3: this is generational wealth being generated for these consultants. Do
5:40
Speaker 3: you think the New York Times or the reporting from
5:43
Speaker 3: the autopsy was accurate in that these people are making
5:45
Speaker 3: that amount of money doing this?
5:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me that that was,
5:53
Speaker 5: I guess it surprises me that this is mentioned in
5:55
Speaker 5: this conversation, because this is a really taboo topic. But yes,
5:59
Speaker 5: we're talking about just enormous sums of money. And to
6:03
Speaker 5: be clear, look, I've worked on a lot of campaigns
6:05
Speaker 5: before I was a journalist. I understand people on campaigns
6:08
Speaker 5: need to get paid.
6:09
Speaker 4: I mean, it's real work. It's hard work.
6:11
Speaker 5: But when we're talking about the levels of money that
6:14
Speaker 5: we're talking about here, I mean, this is something that's
6:20
Speaker 5: way beyond that.
6:22
Speaker 1: You know what? I was curious, how much are these people,
6:26
Speaker 1: and they're vested in what we would call the great
6:28
Speaker 1: moderation fallacy, which is that voters actually want a moderate
6:32
Speaker 1: or a centrist path. So basically, how much are these
6:36
Speaker 1: folks responsible for sowing doubt in the party when a
6:38
Speaker 1: progressive candidate wins? The pundits are on the same page
6:42
Speaker 1: with the same talking points about how the Democrat socialists
6:45
Speaker 1: are somehow bad for the party. How are these people
6:49
Speaker 1: responsible for making progressives look to be the lesser choice,
6:53
Speaker 1: even when voters seem to be supporting them?
6:56
Speaker 5: I think a lot of it has to do, as
6:58
Speaker 5: we've been discussing, it has to do with the money
7:01
Speaker 5: and the financial incentives. There's huge money to be made,
7:04
Speaker 5: not just on campaigns, but there's actually even bigger money
7:07
Speaker 5: to be made if you're working for advising a consultant
7:12
Speaker 5: for super PACs. Super PACs are these supposedly outside entities
7:18
Speaker 5: that are spending huge money in elections and And obviously,
7:22
Speaker 5: those PACs, the biggest of them are funded by billionaire donors,
7:27
Speaker 5: oligarch donors, corporate donors, donors who have a vested interest
7:32
Speaker 5: in the status quo, in the economic status quo.
7:36
Speaker 4: So if you're if you're a.
7:37
Speaker 5: Consultant who's working at the nexus of campaigns and super PACs, uh,
7:43
Speaker 5: and you, you know, your, your next job is going
7:47
Speaker 5: to be at a corporate or oligarch funded super PAC. Uh, and,
7:52
Speaker 5: and you're also working, you know, that those super PACs pick, pick, uh,
7:56
Speaker 5: consultants from specific kinds of campaigns and candidates.
8:00
Speaker 4: Well, guess what?
8:01
Speaker 5: There is a, there is a kind of nexus between
8:05
Speaker 5: what that consultant is going to advise and who their
8:08
Speaker 5: next client is, right?
8:10
Speaker 4: I mean, that is really where this is at.
8:12
Speaker 5: It is a, it is the, the consultant class appropriates
8:16
Speaker 5: the agenda of the donor class and the consultant class
8:20
Speaker 5: is advising the candidates. And I, and you know, you
8:24
Speaker 5: mentioned the media. I mean, look, the, you know, billionaire
8:27
Speaker 5: and oligarch and corporate owned media has a, a viewpoint,
8:33
Speaker 5: it has a political agenda. You know, it's not to
8:34
Speaker 5: say that good journalism can't be done inside of corporate
8:37
Speaker 5: media and the like, it certainly can, but there is
8:39
Speaker 5: a filter there.
8:41
Speaker 3: So, I mean, is this why we keep hearing this
8:44
Speaker 3: question come up again and again on CNN and other
8:46
Speaker 3: punditry saying, well, you know, is when a democratic socialist
8:52
Speaker 3: bad for the party rather than inquiring or trying to
8:54
Speaker 3: understand why people would vote for democratic socialists.
8:57
Speaker 2: It's like a mantra. They say it every time. All
8:59
Speaker 2: they talk about is why it's bad.
9:01
Speaker 3: Is this coming kind of from that consultant industrial complex
9:04
Speaker 3: that you're talking about, like the intersection of this wealth
9:07
Speaker 3: they're making versus actually listening to the voters?
9:11
Speaker 4: Yeah.
9:11
Speaker 5: I mean, I think a lot of the, the conversation
9:15
Speaker 5: about electability, I put that in quotes, this idea that,
9:19
Speaker 5: Candidates can't be too populist, too far left. The Democrats
9:25
Speaker 5: shouldn't nominate them because they can't win general elections. I mean,
9:29
Speaker 5: I'm old enough to remember when Hillary Clinton's campaign and
9:32
Speaker 5: the media said that Barack Obama could not win a
9:35
Speaker 5: general election. I'm old enough to remember when the Democratic
9:39
Speaker 5: Party elites and the media sort of celebrated Donald Trump
9:45
Speaker 5: being nominated as the Republican presidential candidate because they thought
9:48
Speaker 5: he couldn't win a general election. Electability is sort of
9:52
Speaker 5: this manufactured idea that anything that strays too far from
9:58
Speaker 5: the norm uh, inside of where politics and democratic politics
10:02
Speaker 5: specifically is can't actually end up winning a general election.
10:06
Speaker 5: And I think that that's how these, uh, this sort
10:09
Speaker 5: of frame is laundered into the conversation. So then it
10:13
Speaker 5: becomes that, that DSA candidates or economic populist candidates, uh,
10:18
Speaker 5: they supposedly have an electability problem. Oh, it's not necessarily
10:24
Speaker 5: that they may be wrong on specific issues. It's that
10:28
Speaker 5: even if they are right, if Democratic voters vote for them,
10:31
Speaker 5: those candidates can't win general elections. And what I see
10:35
Speaker 5: happening is that the corporate Democratic faction is sort of
10:39
Speaker 5: weaponizing this argument and also.
10:43
Speaker 4: Playing a role in this.
10:45
Speaker 5: In sort of wish-casting that idea into reality, that you
10:49
Speaker 5: see in various races where when populist candidates win the
10:54
Speaker 5: nomination for a general election, that the corporate faction is
10:59
Speaker 5: still attacking and criticizing them in the general election, even
11:04
Speaker 5: though they are now the candidate going up against the
11:06
Speaker 5: MAGA Republicans. And I think what that speaks to is
11:09
Speaker 5: that the corporate faction of the Democratic Party in specific
11:12
Speaker 5: here is willing to potentially lose general elections to MAGA
11:18
Speaker 5: and Republicans if that is the cost of maintaining the
11:23
Speaker 5: corporate faction's power inside the Democratic Party.
11:27
Speaker 1: Now, just to touch on your podcast, which is The
11:30
Speaker 1: Master Plan, for those who haven't heard it yet, I
11:32
Speaker 1: know it gives a history of something we're dealing with
11:35
Speaker 1: at the moment, which is the unitary executive theory of
11:37
Speaker 1: power and, of course, our current president, Donald Trump. But
11:40
Speaker 1: it also focuses on systemic corruption that you say affects
11:44
Speaker 1: all of our lives. So this isn't just about one man, right?
11:48
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
11:49
Speaker 5: So the first season of Master Plan was about the
11:53
Speaker 5: 50-year plot to legalize corruption. And that story basically starts in,
11:58
Speaker 5: and both of these, both seasons do, in the late,
12:01
Speaker 5: excuse me, in the early 1970s, in the.
12:03
Speaker 4: Aftermath of Watergate.
12:05
Speaker 5: Watergate was the first real dark money scandal of the
12:08
Speaker 5: modern era. And what we trace is how conservatives, and
12:14
Speaker 5: they wrote this down in documents, and we have all
12:17
Speaker 5: the evidence there, they really made a blueprint to deregulate
12:22
Speaker 5: the campaign finance system equate corporations with people under the
12:29
Speaker 5: law and narrow the definition, the legal definition of bribery.
12:35
Speaker 5: And they did that because they understood that they became
12:39
Speaker 5: nervous that elections were causing the government to react to
12:45
Speaker 5: what the people wanted. The Powell memo that we talk
12:48
Speaker 5: about in the, it was a memo written by future
12:51
Speaker 5: Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, talks about how at that
12:54
Speaker 5: time conservatives, oligarchs, corporations need to invest in politics because
13:02
Speaker 5: the government had become too responsive to what the people wanted.
13:05
Speaker 5: So one way you deal with that, if you're an
13:08
Speaker 5: oligarch and you think that's a problem, the one way
13:10
Speaker 5: you deal with that is to turn elections into auctions,
13:13
Speaker 5: is to turn your one person, one vote democracy into
13:16
Speaker 5: a $ 1 one vote oligarchy.
13:19
Speaker 4: So that was season one. This relates to season two
13:23
Speaker 4: in this way.
13:24
Speaker 5: So that's the first pillar of how you, if you
13:26
Speaker 5: think democracy is a problem, you legalize corruption, you turn
13:30
Speaker 5: elections into auctions. The other thing you do is what
13:33
Speaker 5: we traced in season two. You try to concentrate as
13:35
Speaker 5: much power in the hands, concentrate as much power as
13:39
Speaker 5: possible in the hands of one person and strip it
13:42
Speaker 5: away from more small, the democratic institutions and all the
13:47
Speaker 5: ways power is dispersed across the country. You concentrate that
13:51
Speaker 5: power in the hands of one person then make sure
13:53
Speaker 5: your person is that person and that is what we
13:56
Speaker 5: are tracing in season two called the king makers which
13:59
Speaker 5: is about essentially the unitary executive theory where this idea
14:03
Speaker 5: came from because again it started after watergate where watergate
14:07
Speaker 5: was seen as a crisis of an imperial presidency congress
14:10
Speaker 5: passes a bunch of laws to strip power from the
14:13
Speaker 5: executive branch and there's it catalyzes a conservative backlash that
14:17
Speaker 5: carries through the Reagan administration, obviously into the George W.
14:20
Speaker 5: Bush administration with the war on terror and into the
14:22
Speaker 5: Obama administration, I should say with, with its use of
14:25
Speaker 5: drone warfare to say that the, the executive branch gets
14:29
Speaker 5: to make all of the decisions. And so the point
14:31
Speaker 5: is you asked is, is what's going on today, Donald Trump,
14:34
Speaker 5: the situation, is that all just one person? No, Donald
14:37
Speaker 5: Trump is in an office with a control panel of tools, uh,
14:43
Speaker 5: that were handed to him, uh, and a system of
14:46
Speaker 5: legalized bribery that was handed to him by 50 years
14:49
Speaker 5: of plots.
14:51
Speaker 1: You know, to your point about how these oligarchs are
14:54
Speaker 1: essentially controlling our conversation and controlling our national narrative, and
14:58
Speaker 1: Stephen and I are actually on Capitol Hill quite a bit,
15:01
Speaker 1: rarely do we ever hear anyone talk about health care,
15:04
Speaker 1: despite what could be described as a literal crisis in
15:06
Speaker 1: the country. I looked at a recent report from Yale University,
15:09
Speaker 1: and it estimated 27 million Americans don't have health care.
15:13
Speaker 1: It's top of the list in the polls in regard
15:16
Speaker 1: to priority concerns from Americans, and yet we're hearing silence
15:19
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. Would you be willing to connect the
15:21
Speaker 1: dots with some of the reporting on your podcast about
15:24
Speaker 1: systemic corruption and our current health care crisis?
15:27
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I mean, I think this is a lot.
15:29
Speaker 5: This has a lot to do with how money doesn't
15:32
Speaker 5: just buy legislative favors. Money also buys silence. I think
15:36
Speaker 5: that's the and sometimes not even a transaction has to
15:42
Speaker 5: occur in order for silence to nonetheless be purchased. And
15:45
Speaker 5: it works in a lot of ways in this way.
15:48
Speaker 5: That if you're a senator, if you're a congressperson, you
15:52
Speaker 5: know implicitly now that if you propose a bill to
15:57
Speaker 5: deal with the healthcare crisis that, let's say, challenges the
16:00
Speaker 5: power of or threatens the profits of the private health
16:03
Speaker 5: insurance industry, you know that what you're doing is potentially
16:09
Speaker 5: provoking that very powerful moneyed interest to spend a lot
16:14
Speaker 5: of money to get you thrown out of Congress. So
16:18
Speaker 5: many legislators basically choose to not do anything or not
16:23
Speaker 5: say anything for fear of sticking their neck out and
16:29
Speaker 5: seeing their political career ended. Money doesn't necessarily have to
16:33
Speaker 5: even be transacted for that situation to exist. And so
16:40
Speaker 5: what I'm describing really is the norm, that there is
16:42
Speaker 5: an implicit threat that if anybody tries in a serious
16:46
Speaker 5: way to deal with the healthcare crisis, they will be targeted.
16:50
Speaker 4: We know this, by the way, from the Obama era.
16:53
Speaker 5: Where the first thing that the Obama administration said when
16:59
Speaker 5: it got into office and started pushing for some kind
17:03
Speaker 5: of healthcare reform was, we are ruling single-payer healthcare off
17:07
Speaker 5: the table. It was immediately, the administration made an announcement
17:11
Speaker 5: that this is not part of the conversation. And this
17:13
Speaker 5: is only, at that point, four years after Barack Obama,
17:16
Speaker 5: when he campaigned for the Senate said, he's a supporter
17:20
Speaker 5: of Medicare for all. We just need to get a
17:21
Speaker 5: democratic house, a democratic Senate and a democratic president. And
17:24
Speaker 5: four years later, they had that. And they immediately said,
17:27
Speaker 5: we're not even going to talk about this. And I
17:29
Speaker 5: think that was because they saw the collective power of
17:33
Speaker 5: the healthcare industry and said, if we do this, there
17:36
Speaker 5: will be a ton of spending to try to get
17:38
Speaker 5: every member of our party thrown out of office.
17:40
Speaker 4: And they also ruled out the public option.
17:43
Speaker 5: So my point in just mentioning this is that Even
17:45
Speaker 5: though money doesn't get transacted, money is overlaying and creating
17:51
Speaker 5: the political conditions at all times.
17:53
Speaker 3: You know, one thing I really appreciate about the podcast
17:56
Speaker 3: is it goes back 50 years, which a lot of
17:58
Speaker 3: times reporters, we get caught up in the contemporary moment
18:01
Speaker 3: and don't understand the roots of this. But I was
18:04
Speaker 3: thinking when I was listening to it that, you know,
18:06
Speaker 3: all of the sort of trends we've seen in economic inequality,
18:10
Speaker 3: and this show is about economic inequality, started about the
18:13
Speaker 3: time your podcast started. starts digging into this sort of
18:16
Speaker 3: systemic corruption. I mean, is inequality intertwined in this story
18:21
Speaker 3: in terms of like how the process that you kind
18:24
Speaker 3: of illuminate sort of set the seeds for this almost
18:28
Speaker 3: traumatic wealth inequality and wealth imbalance we're seeing now?
18:31
Speaker 2: Are they intertwined in that sense?
18:33
Speaker 4: So there's an amazing website. People can Google it.
18:36
Speaker 5: I think if they put just the year 1971 into Google,
18:39
Speaker 5: you'll find it where it traces how so many trends
18:42
Speaker 5: started in the year 1920, excuse me, 1971. It's kind
18:46
Speaker 5: of amazing, like de-unionization, inequality, et cetera, et cetera. I
18:51
Speaker 5: do not think it is an accident that so many
18:54
Speaker 5: of the trends started at roughly that time. This is
18:58
Speaker 5: the lead up to the Watergate era. This is a
19:02
Speaker 5: moment where the consumer movement and the broader left has
19:08
Speaker 5: sort of culminates a lot of its agenda, right? Medicare, Medicaid,
19:13
Speaker 5: the Great Society, all this is culminating. Ralph Nader is
19:16
Speaker 5: having huge success, regulatory success in Congress. But there is
19:21
Speaker 5: this backlash. A well-oiled, moneyed, conservative machine is starting in
19:29
Speaker 5: earnest to build what ultimately ends up culminating in MAGA.
19:34
Speaker 5: And I think that that machine... was based on preserving
19:40
Speaker 5: and expanding the wealth of the people who were funding
19:44
Speaker 5: that machine. We're talking about people like, Joseph Coors, to
19:47
Speaker 5: name somebody, like the Kochs. That machine started to be
19:51
Speaker 5: built then, and it was a machine designed ultimately for
19:55
Speaker 5: wealth protection for that small group of people. And this
20:02
Speaker 5: sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it's not a theory.
20:06
Speaker 5: It was a conspiracy.
20:07
Speaker 4: Uh, and, and look, they, they use the tools of
20:09
Speaker 4: the government.
20:10
Speaker 5: Uh, they use the, the, the laws of the land and,
20:13
Speaker 5: and the, the lobbying system and the campaign finance system
20:16
Speaker 5: to get what they wanted. Uh, and we are now
20:18
Speaker 5: here living through that reality. So when I think people
20:22
Speaker 5: look at the affordability crisis, when they look at, uh,
20:25
Speaker 5: gilded age levels of, um, uh, of inequality, uh, We
20:30
Speaker 5: have to understand that goes along with the corruption that
20:34
Speaker 5: we're talking about, right? Like the original Gilded Age was
20:37
Speaker 5: also one of the most infamously corrupt ages in American history.
20:42
Speaker 4: Like these two things go together.
20:45
Speaker 5: The wealthy and the powerful are buying politicians, buying elections,
20:50
Speaker 5: buying policy outcomes that preserve and expand the wealth of
20:55
Speaker 5: the already wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
20:58
Speaker 4: This is the oldest story in America.
21:00
Speaker 1: You know, you broke a story about a really troubling
21:03
Speaker 1: phenomenon inside the Democrat political machine. And it basically uses
21:07
Speaker 1: dark money to push or bolster so-called moderate candidates. The
21:10
Speaker 1: organizations you identified were called the bench and majority Democrats.
21:15
Speaker 1: Could you explain how these organizations work and what's really
21:18
Speaker 1: behind them in terms of pushing this moderation fallacy we
21:22
Speaker 1: keep on coming upon?
21:23
Speaker 4: Right.
21:23
Speaker 5: So this is a this is listen, we've had iteration.
21:26
Speaker 5: We've seen iterations of this for decades. Most of the
21:29
Speaker 5: post New Deal era of politics. I would pinpoint that
21:34
Speaker 5: to probably in the modern era, starting in the 1980s.
21:39
Speaker 5: You had a movement among, they were called at one
21:41
Speaker 5: point so-called Atari Democrats. Then they became the Democratic Leadership Council.
21:46
Speaker 5: Now they exist as groups like Third Way. So this
21:51
Speaker 5: is not something new. And you're right. They exist like
21:54
Speaker 5: a group like the bench and majority Democrats. They have
21:57
Speaker 5: different names and different faces, but it's the same idea.
22:00
Speaker 5: And the idea is that the Democrats need to abandon
22:06
Speaker 5: their New Deal roots in order to compete with Republicans
22:10
Speaker 5: and to do that, to compete with Republicans for business support,
22:16
Speaker 5: corporate support, oligarch support, and all of those entities' money.
22:21
Speaker 5: This has been going on now for 40 plus years.
22:24
Speaker 5: And so I think this is the latest iteration of that, right?
22:27
Speaker 5: You have shadowy billionaires funding this network of groups and
22:31
Speaker 5: think tanks, which are designed to support candidates who are,
22:36
Speaker 5: and I'm putting it in quotes here, like moderate. But
22:38
Speaker 5: what that really means is much more corporate and oligarch friendly.
22:43
Speaker 5: That is what the, and again, they don't come out
22:47
Speaker 5: and say that, right? They are cast as, we are
22:50
Speaker 5: pushing this because these are the most electable candidates, right?
22:54
Speaker 5: They don't, they're not acknowledging the actual mission of what's
22:59
Speaker 5: going on. They're shrouding it in the veneer of what
23:03
Speaker 5: seems like a rational and logical political argument. But what's
23:07
Speaker 5: really underneath here, it's not a coincidence, that there is
23:10
Speaker 5: billionaire money and there is big money that wants specific
23:13
Speaker 5: things from these politicians.
23:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Citizens United obviously is the core of
23:19
Speaker 3: this story in terms of things getting worse in the
23:21
Speaker 3: past decade, but there is a recent decision, NRSC versus
23:26
Speaker 3: Federal Election Commission, which also, I guess, loosens some of
23:30
Speaker 3: the restrictions on spending and coordinating. Can you talk a
23:33
Speaker 3: little bit about your concerns about that decision and how
23:36
Speaker 3: you think it'll make this political campaign finance system even worse.
23:40
Speaker 5: So citizens United mostly dealt with outside so-called outside super
23:45
Speaker 5: PAC spending. Uh, the idea was that these super PACs,
23:49
Speaker 5: which are backing specific candidates because they are supposedly independent
23:53
Speaker 5: from the candidates. Um, they can't be, uh, regulated because
23:58
Speaker 5: they have free speech rights.
24:00
Speaker 4: They have first amendment rights.
24:01
Speaker 5: Um, That ruling, now, I say all this understanding and
24:06
Speaker 5: implying that those super PACs aren't in practice really very
24:09
Speaker 5: independent from those candidates, right?
24:11
Speaker 4: It's almost like a fallacy.
24:13
Speaker 5: But the Supreme Court's argument was they're independent, so they
24:18
Speaker 5: can't be corrupting, and so their First Amendment rights to
24:21
Speaker 5: spend must be protected. What Citizens United left in place, though,
24:25
Speaker 5: was the government's interest in preventing straight-up quid pro quo
24:30
Speaker 5: corruption is means that campaign contribution limits directly to candidates
24:36
Speaker 5: can still be maintained. Because you can't argue that a
24:39
Speaker 5: donation directly to a candidate cannot be corrosive from a
24:43
Speaker 5: corruption standpoint, cannot be a vehicle of quid pro quo corruption.
24:46
Speaker 5: So even in the post-Citizens United era, campaign contribution limits
24:51
Speaker 5: directly to candidates have been maintained. Well, along comes this case.
24:55
Speaker 5: And what this case sought to do, a case spearheaded
24:58
Speaker 5: by J.D. Vance, We call it Citizens United 2.0. It
25:02
Speaker 5: was designed to say that there was a law in
25:05
Speaker 5: place to preserve those campaigns contribution limits to say, listen,
25:09
Speaker 5: you can't route your campaign contributions through a party to
25:13
Speaker 5: get around the campaign contribution limits to a candidate, right?
25:18
Speaker 5: You need to make sure that if a donor wants
25:22
Speaker 5: to give a candidate, you know, six figures worth of money,
25:25
Speaker 5: way above the campaign contribution limit, they can't just be
25:27
Speaker 5: able to give it to their party and know that
25:29
Speaker 5: their party is going to coordinate as if they were
25:32
Speaker 5: the candidate with the candidate to spend the money.
25:35
Speaker 4: So the Republicans, led by J.D.
25:37
Speaker 5: Vance, went into court to say that law should be
25:39
Speaker 5: taken away. And so the Supreme Court agrees. And so
25:42
Speaker 5: now what we have, we have a much larger conduit
25:46
Speaker 5: through which big donors can now give much larger amounts
25:51
Speaker 5: of money to political parties, and the political parties can
25:56
Speaker 5: spend in coordination with those candidates. So what that does
26:01
Speaker 5: in practice, it means that the original campaign contribution limits
26:04
Speaker 5: that were designed to prevent corruption, they were just circumvented.
26:08
Speaker 5: They were just significantly weakened and widened. A much larger
26:13
Speaker 5: amount of money can now be funneled directly to candidates.
26:17
Speaker 1: I was just wondering if you could make the public
26:20
Speaker 1: understand just one thing about corruption that normally our legal
26:24
Speaker 1: systems obscure or political systems obscure or the oligarchs are
26:27
Speaker 1: actively working to obscure. What would it be? What would
26:30
Speaker 1: you want voters to understand and know?
26:33
Speaker 5: I'd want voters to understand and know that there's a
26:35
Speaker 5: direct connection between the policies that are harming them and
26:38
Speaker 5: the corruption that's taking place. That when they're paying higher
26:42
Speaker 5: prices for a medicine, a medicine developed already at U.S.
26:48
Speaker 5: taxpayer expense. Most major medicines are originally developed. We've already
26:53
Speaker 5: paid for them as taxpayers. The average person should know
26:57
Speaker 5: that the reason that they are now, when they need
27:00
Speaker 5: that medicine for some illness or the like, the reason
27:04
Speaker 5: they're paying the world's highest prices for that medicine is
27:09
Speaker 5: because the pharmaceutical industry gave a lot of money to
27:12
Speaker 5: politicians who to rescind the rule that said if a
27:16
Speaker 5: drug is developed at taxpayer expense, it has to be
27:19
Speaker 5: sold to taxpayers on the market at a fair price.
27:22
Speaker 5: That rule was removed because the pharmaceutical industry gave a
27:27
Speaker 5: lot of money to politicians to get them to remove it.
27:30
Speaker 5: I could go on and on and on, but I
27:32
Speaker 5: guess what I'm getting at is that every policy that
27:37
Speaker 5: is responsible for the affordability crisis in the United States
27:41
Speaker 5: can be traced back to a policy written and bought
27:46
Speaker 5: by big money. That corruption is not some esoteric abstract issue.
27:52
Speaker 5: Corruption is why the working class and middle class of
27:56
Speaker 5: this country is being immiserated.
27:59
Speaker 3: You know, David, before we let you go, I've been
28:01
Speaker 3: wanting to ask you this question. If Bernie Sanders wins
28:04
Speaker 3: in 2016 or in 2020, would we even be talking.
28:08
Speaker 2: About Donald Trump?
28:10
Speaker 3: I mean, if the Democrats let Bernie Sanders win rightfully
28:14
Speaker 3: those primaries? Do you think we'd ever even be having,
28:17
Speaker 3: would he have beaten Donald Trump either way?
28:20
Speaker 4: It's hard to run that counterfactual.
28:22
Speaker 5: I mean, I know one of Donald Trump's pollsters said
28:24
Speaker 5: after 2016, they thought Bernie Sanders might have beaten Donald Trump,
28:27
Speaker 5: would have been a stronger candidate against Donald Trump.
28:31
Speaker 4: It's hard to know, but I take it back a
28:33
Speaker 4: little farther.
28:34
Speaker 5: I think the more interesting, the question that haunts me,
28:39
Speaker 5: and I think should haunt us all, is whether there
28:42
Speaker 5: would have been a Donald Trump phenomenon had Obama and
28:48
Speaker 5: the Democrats, when they had a supermajority or a near supermajority,
28:52
Speaker 5: had they really genuinely delivered a new New Deal as
28:57
Speaker 5: was rhetorically promised in 2008. I think a lot about
29:03
Speaker 5: in 1938, FDR gave the speech. It was about democracy
29:07
Speaker 5: and he had said, and I'm paraphrasing here, you know,
29:10
Speaker 5: democracy did not go away.
29:12
Speaker 4: In other countries. He's looking out at Europe and the like.
29:14
Speaker 5: He said it did not go away in other countries
29:16
Speaker 5: because people there didn't like freedom, didn't like democracy. Democracy
29:19
Speaker 5: went away because people saw a dysfunctional government and they
29:23
Speaker 5: ultimately decided to vote to get something to eat. The
29:26
Speaker 5: idea being that the New Deal actually significantly delivering in
29:33
Speaker 5: a real way for the working class, FDR understood it
29:37
Speaker 5: to be an anti-fascist program. a way to prevent the
29:41
Speaker 5: rise of fascism in the United States. The idea that
29:44
Speaker 5: if you raise people's hopes and you don't deliver for them,
29:49
Speaker 5: you will sow a level of disillusionment that will be
29:52
Speaker 5: channeled by the right. So I think a lot about
29:54
Speaker 5: those two years, certainly those first two years in the
29:57
Speaker 5: Obama administration, that had the administration used its political capital
30:03
Speaker 5: to seriously deliver for the working class rather than bailing
30:07
Speaker 5: out bankers who were foreclosing on 10 million people rather
30:10
Speaker 5: than ruling out single-payer health care and getting rid of
30:13
Speaker 5: a public option and instead passing a kind of heritage
30:16
Speaker 5: foundation version of health care reform Granted, better than the
30:20
Speaker 5: health care system before it, but not a full delivery
30:23
Speaker 5: on the promise.
30:24
Speaker 4: Had the Obama administration used.
30:26
Speaker 5: That political capital, the Democratic Party used its political capital
30:29
Speaker 5: to really deliver, would there have been a Donald Trump? Now,
30:32
Speaker 5: that is a question I don't know the answer to.
30:34
Speaker 5: Maybe there still would have been. But I do know this.
30:36
Speaker 5: 200 plus counties voted twice for Barack Obama and then
30:41
Speaker 5: voted for Donald Trump. So I think when you look
30:43
Speaker 5: at that, it's hard to say, well, Trump only got
30:45
Speaker 5: elected because of racism. I think you have to be
30:48
Speaker 5: honest and look deeper and say people were extremely disillusioned.
30:53
Speaker 5: The Democrats, yes, they chose to put up in 2016
30:56
Speaker 5: a nominee who seemed like an avatar of the kind
31:01
Speaker 5: of problems that people were disillusioned with.
31:03
Speaker 4: And people voted for the political version of the Joker, right?
31:06
Speaker 4: They voted for Donald Trump to just blow up the system, right?
31:09
Speaker 5: I'm not saying I think that was a good thing
31:11
Speaker 5: at all, obviously, but I think that is what happens.
31:13
Speaker 5: And what I worry about is looking ahead to the
31:16
Speaker 5: next set of elections. If a Democratic president is elected
31:19
Speaker 5: in 2028, making big, bold promises and does not deliver,
31:24
Speaker 5: do we relive that cycle again? And is the next
31:26
Speaker 5: joker who gets elected at the end of that disillusioning cycle,
31:30
Speaker 5: is that somebody who's smarter, shrewder, and even more dangerous
31:34
Speaker 5: than Donald Trump?
31:35
Speaker 4: That's what haunts me.
31:37
Speaker 3: I mean, even now, it doesn't seem like the Democrats
31:39
Speaker 3: are making a great case for a new New Deal.
31:42
Speaker 2: That I can see that we can see on Capitol Hill.
31:44
Speaker 4: Not yet.
31:44
Speaker 5: I mean, I mean, listen, listen, I'm not apologizing for
31:47
Speaker 5: the Democrats, right? I think their argument in this election
31:51
Speaker 5: is put us into power so we can at least
31:53
Speaker 5: be a check on the last two years of Donald Trump.
31:55
Speaker 5: I think that's actually a fair argument. I think what
31:58
Speaker 5: everyone should be watching for is in the 2028 democratic
32:02
Speaker 5: presidential primaries, who is proposing what, who is looks like,
32:09
Speaker 5: and it, who can we detect is really serious about
32:14
Speaker 5: delivering in a real way? Because if whoever gets the
32:18
Speaker 5: nomination and if they win the election, if they do
32:21
Speaker 5: not deliver, we are going to live through this cycle
32:24
Speaker 5: again and it will be even worse.
32:28
Speaker 1: You know, David, what you said was absolutely amazing. And
32:30
Speaker 1: that's what should be keeping the consultant class awake at night,
32:33
Speaker 1: despite their generational wealth stuffed in their pillows and mattresses.
32:38
Speaker 5: I mean, you'd hope, but, but I, you know, and,
32:40
Speaker 5: and look, I, I, to be clear, like I'm heartened
32:43
Speaker 5: by some of the elections happening right now. We are,
32:45
Speaker 5: we are finally at a point where it seems like
32:47
Speaker 5: democratic voters, um, are not only angry at what's going
32:51
Speaker 5: on in the country, but, but disillusioned with their own
32:53
Speaker 5: party's leadership. And I think that's actually a moment of opportunity.
32:58
Speaker 5: to actually fundamentally change that party, to fundamentally make it
33:03
Speaker 5: into a vehicle that actually is serious about delivering.
33:06
Speaker 4: But to be clear, the corporate faction of that party
33:09
Speaker 4: is not going to give up power without a big fight.
33:12
Speaker 5: So I don't think, you know, there's been some encouraging elections,
33:16
Speaker 5: but I don't think it's an inevitability that this all
33:18
Speaker 5: goes in a sort of positive, constructive direction. There is
33:22
Speaker 5: a lot of power and money that is trying to
33:25
Speaker 5: stop that from happening.
33:26
Speaker 1: Absolutely. David, we don't want to keep you too long.
33:29
Speaker 1: We promise to respect your time, but I have to
33:31
Speaker 1: say this has been an incredible conversation. We are so
33:35
Speaker 1: lucky to have an investigative journalist like you watching the
33:37
Speaker 1: machinations of power and the threat that it poses to
33:40
Speaker 1: our democracy. We have to thank you so much for
33:42
Speaker 1: your time, and we really hope that we'll speak to
33:44
Speaker 1: you again in the future.
33:47
Speaker 2: Anytime.
33:47
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
33:48
Speaker 1: We really appreciate you so much.
33:50
Speaker 2: Thank you.
33:51
Speaker 1: Okay, Stephen, before I do my final rant or analysis,
33:55
Speaker 1: do you have any thoughts about our discussion you want
33:57
Speaker 1: to share?
33:58
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
33:58
Speaker 1: I bet.
33:58
Speaker 3: Okay, Taya, I was really struck by the idea that
34:01
Speaker 3: democracy has to deliver to survive.
34:05
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a really important concept. We talked about
34:08
Speaker 2: this with Dr.
34:08
Speaker 3: Richard Wolff, who told us in terms of the Cold War,
34:12
Speaker 3: there was a concerted effort to make people's lives better
34:14
Speaker 3: because otherwise democracy would not survive. And I think that
34:18
Speaker 3: is a critical takeaway from what we see covering Capitol Hill,
34:21
Speaker 3: where there's just no attention to the immediate needs. You know,
34:24
Speaker 3: we watched while the Democrats and Republicans, and I don't
34:27
Speaker 3: blame the Democrats for this, where the Republicans couldn't even
34:29
Speaker 3: pass ACA.
34:30
Speaker 2: Subsidies so that people could keep their health care.
34:33
Speaker 3: If democracy is going to survive, then this political system
34:36
Speaker 3: has to freaking deliver like now. And people have to
34:39
Speaker 3: make promises and keep them. And it just really struck
34:42
Speaker 3: me that like democracy in this age of inequality is
34:45
Speaker 3: not delivering for the people it's supposed to serve. And
34:48
Speaker 3: if it doesn't, that's why it's going to collapse. Not
34:50
Speaker 3: because Donald Trump is an idiot or we hate him
34:52
Speaker 3: or whatever, not because of those things. And not even
34:55
Speaker 3: because of MAGWO, because overall the system doesn't deliver. And
34:59
Speaker 3: I hope that who's ever going to try to get
35:01
Speaker 3: elected And 2028 is listening to that important point. You
35:05
Speaker 3: got to deliver real benefits to the people who live
35:10
Speaker 3: in this country.
35:11
Speaker 1: You know what's crazy, Stephen? What you just said actually
35:13
Speaker 1: almost sounds like a foreign concept that a politician makes
35:17
Speaker 1: a promise and is supposed to deliver on said promise.
35:20
Speaker 2: Right.
35:20
Speaker 4: I agree.
35:21
Speaker 1: That sounds groundbreaking for some reason.
35:23
Speaker 2: It really does. Sounds revolutionary.
35:25
Speaker 1: So if there is one takeaway from David's insight to
35:28
Speaker 1: how our political system works and doesn't, it has to
35:31
Speaker 1: be the role of fear in making us believe change
35:34
Speaker 1: is simply impossible. I mean, the whole moderation fallacy he
35:37
Speaker 1: discussed with us is based upon the idea that fear
35:40
Speaker 1: is more important than any idea or change or simply
35:43
Speaker 1: transforming a system that does not serve us, the people.
35:46
Speaker 1: Taking risks, believing something is possible and embracing change is
35:49
Speaker 1: just foolish. That new ideas, new candidates and new voters
35:53
Speaker 1: should be avoided. All because a party establishment fears it
35:56
Speaker 1: will lose power. And that's where I think the establishment
35:59
Speaker 1: Democrats and Trump intersect. Because in a sense, President Trump
36:03
Speaker 1: is the perfect foil for a party seeking to maintain
36:06
Speaker 1: the status quo. He's the perfect instrument of fear. We're
36:10
Speaker 1: told the only way to rid ourselves of him is
36:12
Speaker 1: to stick with the establishment that lost to him twice. Yes,
36:16
Speaker 1: that's right. Remember, they actually already lost twice. That's why
36:20
Speaker 1: when you turn on the mainstream media, you hear a
36:22
Speaker 1: chorus of highly paid anchors and apparently very rich pundits
36:25
Speaker 1: having the same circular conversation. It goes something like this.
36:29
Speaker 1: Will the success of Democratic Socialists hurt the party's chances
36:33
Speaker 1: in November? Will the historic wins of popular candidates with
36:36
Speaker 1: new ideas keep the establishment Dems from taking their rightful
36:39
Speaker 1: place in the chronicles of power come the midterms? But
36:42
Speaker 1: here is what you don't hear. And Stephen, please correct
36:45
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong.
36:46
Speaker 2: I will.
36:46
Speaker 1: What you don't hear is a question, and it's a
36:49
Speaker 1: simple one. It's actually just a one-word question.
36:51
Speaker 2: Why?
36:52
Speaker 4: Why?
36:52
Speaker 1: Why do you think voters want change? Why did so
36:55
Speaker 1: many young people show up at the polls when socialists
36:57
Speaker 1: are on the ballot? Why were their candidates funded by
36:59
Speaker 1: AIPAC and other super PACs unpopular? And in many cases,
37:03
Speaker 1: they just outright lost. And what? I know this is
37:05
Speaker 1: really crazy. What do the voters actually want? Why have
37:10
Speaker 1: they rejected the status quo? Why have they set aside
37:13
Speaker 1: fear for something different? And why aren't they buying the
37:15
Speaker 1: consultant class talking points that have been shoved down their
37:18
Speaker 1: throats for decades while wealth inequality flourishes and they just
37:21
Speaker 1: can't get ahead? Why? It's a much better question than
37:25
Speaker 1: trying to characterize every socialist Democrat as a burden. Maybe,
37:29
Speaker 1: just maybe, legacy media, that's the question you should be
37:32
Speaker 1: asking in your multi-million dollar studios with ultra-rich consultants trading
37:36
Speaker 1: barbs as if there's some sort of substantive difference between
37:38
Speaker 1: a high-priced Democratic operative and an overpaid Republican pundit. Perhaps
37:43
Speaker 1: you should try to understand what motivates people to support
37:46
Speaker 1: candidates your infrastructure of manufactured consent has rejected. You should ask,
37:52
Speaker 1: Be curious. Be interested in the people who express dissatisfaction
37:56
Speaker 1: with the state of America today. They're actually important. They're
37:59
Speaker 1: just as important as the Trump voters you fetishized and
38:01
Speaker 1: chased down. Really, they're not as irrational as you often
38:05
Speaker 1: characterize them. They're not monolithic or unreasonable or even unreachable.
38:10
Speaker 1: Stephen and I spoke to them during Mondami's campaign, and
38:12
Speaker 1: they were more than happy to share their thoughts. Legacy Media.
38:16
Speaker 1: Please try listening, try understanding, try empathy. You might learn something.
38:23
Speaker 1: You might learn that while our concerns for our hyper-expensive
38:26
Speaker 1: healthcare system tops poll after poll, you never talk about it.
38:30
Speaker 1: You might learn that while the earth is consumed by
38:33
Speaker 1: a historic rise in heat, you talk about wildfires. but
38:36
Speaker 1: not the policies and oil subsidies that fuel them. Well,
38:39
Speaker 1: for those of you out there watching, I want you
38:42
Speaker 1: to know that here on our show, we're going to
38:43
Speaker 1: try to do the opposite. We are going to listen
38:46
Speaker 1: and we're going to learn. And we promise to keep
38:48
Speaker 1: doing so in order to bring you the truth, not
38:50
Speaker 1: the truth of the pundits, not the truth of corporate media,
38:53
Speaker 1: but the only truth that matters. And that is the
38:55
Speaker 1: truth that belongs to and is spoken by we, the people.
39:01
Speaker 1: My name is Taya Graham, along with my reporting partner,
39:04
Speaker 1: Stephen Janis. Thank you so much for joining us on
39:06
Speaker 1: the Inequality Watch. And as always, we are reporting for you.